Unexpected Expenses
Mean Tough Choices

By

Jeff D. Opdyke Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated April 4, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET

My wife and I recently received some good news, and some expensive news.

As I've written previously, Amy and I are adopting a baby girl from China. The adoption agency has now told us that the Chinese authorities accepted our mound of paperwork and that we'll probably be venturing overseas to pick up our daughter early this fall.

That was the good news ... which leads to the expensive news. The way everything shakes out, we now...